Recall - The Stigma of Insanity on Political Opponents; Prisoners' Accounts of Forced Transfers to Psychiatric Hospitals

I, Masib Raeisi Yeganeh, known as Mohsen Raeisi, a political prisoner held in Ward 8, Hall 8, am currently serving my sentence. On 15/7/99 at 22:15, I was informed that I would be sent to the hospital the next day, and the deputy and prison officials did not allow me to contact my relatives to inform them... (recorded voice on the prison phone lines: the call is from a prisoner). They did not specify which hospital, and after an hour, they said Razavi Hospital! But they did not mention which Razavi and where. At 7:30 AM, when I was on my way to the hospital, they told me it was Razavi Hospital; the neurology department (Aminabad). The transfer document stated it was only for a consultation. When I was asked about my presence there, they expressed ignorance and said that the prosecutor of Branch 1 of District 33 had requested us to admit you, but not at personal expense; rather, they were willing to pay from the prison organization’s treasury to label and slander you as insane. I was taken under guard, accompanied by three officers, with handcuffs and shackles, and under the threats of the hospital's guards, to the Aboureyhan section, room four. I could never have imagined such conditions even in my dreams. The patients were suffering, and some staff were making them work in cleaning tasks by promising them three cigarettes. They were mostly in poor health or were looking for a smoke or a piece of bread. Their world and dreams were so small and beautiful that a pack of cigarettes was a world of joy and happiness for them. I did not allow them to give me any medication or injections, but hearing about the events that had happened to Mr. Behnam Mahjoubi there made me alert and worried. There is no longer any guarantee that we political prisoners will leave prison or even be alive to return. These are the words of Masib Raeisi Yeganeh, a political prisoner from inside Evin Prison. Masib Raeisi Yeganeh, known as Mohsen Raeisi, has been a political prisoner in the Islamic Republic since 1998. He was sentenced to seven years in prison on familiar charges such as 'propaganda against the regime' or 'insulting the sacred' and 'insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic.' The sentences you read are a first-hand account of this political prisoner regarding the forced transfer of prisoners to Razavi Psychiatric Hospital, known as Aminabad. His voice was recorded over the prison phone lines, risking danger to convey his and other prisoners' voices to the outside world. Can you hear his voice? In the sixth episode of the multimedia series 'Recall,' political prisoners recount their experiences of forced transfers from prison to psychiatric hospitals, including one of the most significant and perhaps terrifying for prisoners; Razavi Psychiatric Hospital, known as Aminabad. The shocking statements that begin this program were recorded in a phone call from inside Evin Prison; a man who says there is no certainty that we prisoners will come out of this prison alive. Before him, we had heard other shocking accounts. Do you remember Behnam Mahjoubi's voice? The frightened, tormented, tortured, humiliated, and helpless voice of Behnam Mahjoubi? When he said: 'I really saw the decline of humanity in Aminabad. I saw the nullification of humanity; it was the annihilation of humanity... they say you should die like a dog.' Behnam Mahjoubi, the owner of this terrified voice from the depths of darkness, had been transferred from Evin Prison to Aminabad shortly before Masib Raeisi Yeganeh. A political prisoner who lost his life in prison due to lack of medical attention, drug poisoning, and enduring various tortures and repeated forced transfers to Aminabad Hospital. The madness-making of political opponents is an organized use of psychology and psychiatry against political opponents, turning psychology into a tool for controlling citizens, a known method of Russian intelligence services, especially during the Soviet Union era. The regime considers its opponents insane or tries to portray them as such. The autocratic government argues: which sane person would oppose a regime as good as ours?! The regime used the term 'philosophical drunkenness' to describe the protests of its opponents. The number of prisoners transferred to terrifying psychiatric centers during that time was never clearly established. The Washington Post reported in October 1987, in a detailed report, that thousands of political prisoners existed in psychiatric hospitals during Brezhnev's leadership, based on an interview with a former KGB officer. The political misuse of psychology in the Soviet Union progressed to the point that the World Psychiatric Association ended the Soviet Union's membership in 1983. Not only the Soviet Union but also China, India, Castro's Cuba, Nazi Germany, Argentina, Hungary, Romania, and other closed and totalitarian regimes have used the label of mental illness to suppress their opponents. It seems that someone sitting up there asks themselves: how could someone dare to be unhappy in the best government system in the world? Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, has previously said: the Islamic system has provided a great opportunity for Islamic propagators. When has such a thing existed for you and me throughout the history of the clergy from the beginning of Islam until now, which, by divine grace, this system will endure for centuries? It is not dissimilar to Hitler's speech, the leader of Nazi Germany: 'The Reich government will last for thousands of years, and it is gratifying to see that the future belongs only to us.' For the Islamic Republic, this is a newer trend. It does not have a long history and has intensified in recent years. On one hand, the forced sending of political prisoners to psychiatric centers, and on the other hand, the issuance of sentences containing the stigma and label of insanity for protesters. Many female artists who removed their mandatory hijab during the 'Women, Life, Freedom' protests received such sentences. What you read in this part of 'Recall' is an important part of the history of political repression in Iran that cannot be ignored or forgotten; despite its endless bitterness and perhaps because of its endless bitterness. The first narrator: Kianoush Sanjari. The first narrator is Kianoush Sanjari, a journalist and political activist who spoke with me from Tehran. He has experienced the Islamic Republic's prison more than ten times and has been sent to Aminabad for humiliation and punishment. I ask him where he wants to start talking about this horrific experience? Kianoush Sanjari: Well, among those who have been transferred to psychiatric centers in recent years, some may have suffered from depression or their mental health may have been affected due to the pressures and conditions of prison, and their mental health has been at risk of illness, which I am not aware of the details of each case, but undoubtedly this trend that I see is not a matter related to mental health but a new process of systematic political repression; at least for me, this happened. Let’s go back to what happened to you. I want to ask you to talk about your experience. The last time you went to prison, you were also one of the political prisoners who were transferred to a psychiatric hospital, specifically to Aminabad. What process did you go through? How did this happen? Sanjari: To briefly answer your question, after ten years of work and life in America, I returned to Iran, and after being framed by the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence and being convicted in the Revolutionary Court to serve time, I was transferred to Evin Prison. In prison, due to severe pressures, I became depressed, and this was my tenth political imprisonment, and it was unbearable for me. In Evin Prison, I was met by a forensic medical representative. I explained my situation to him and said that I was facing this case because of expressing my political thoughts and beliefs and my opposition to the political system of the country, and I explained that I was under psychological pressure and had committed no crime, I had not stolen, embezzled, climbed over people's walls, committed murder, or invited anyone to violence; I was just a journalist. I am a political opponent whose voice has been attempted to be silenced. When he realized that I had truly committed no crime, he said he would agree to my request for medical leave. Some time after that meeting, I found out that there was a letter agreeing to my leave, but it had not been implemented. This letter somehow reached me, and I gave it to my family during a monthly visit, and they conveyed it to a judicial authority. So what happened next? Did you get transferred because of this letter? How were you transferred? Were you informed that you were being taken to a psychiatric hospital? To Aminabad? Sanjari: One early morning, under the pretext of reviewing my medical leave, they took me out of prison. They put me in a van with several prisoners. They dropped those prisoners off in front of the courts. As usual, I had been dealing with the court and prison for the past twenty-three or twenty-four years. Although in 1999, for example, when I was arrested during student protests, we were transported in a meat truck with no windows to judicial centers, now we are being transferred in a van... The prisoners got off one by one, and two conscripts handcuffed my hands and shackled my feet. The vehicle moved away from Tehran. In an area where I no longer recognized my geographical surroundings, I did not know at that moment which part of the city we were in. I had heard the name Aminabad Hospital before; as one of the oldest centers for the care of patients with severe mental disorders, but I had no idea where this center was located in Tehran. Later, I learned that this center is in the eastern part of Shahr-e-Rey, and I didn’t even know that I was going to be transferred to this center. Anyway, the vehicle went, and I suddenly saw the sign and the board of this center from the van window, and I read that it was the Razavi Psychiatric Center, which is a new name for Aminabad! So you suddenly saw the sign and realized you were being transferred to Aminabad, and what happened next? Sanjari: We entered. The door closed, and just like a prison, I was imprisoned there. At first, I thought I was transferred there for a test or medical examination. But when I saw myself with my hands and feet bound next to patients suffering from severe mental disorders, when I looked at the closed windows and doors and the guards, I realized what was happening; I, a political and ideological prisoner, instead of going on medical leave that had been requested for me, was now in an environment that could not help alleviate my depression, which was caused by the heavy prison sentence and the false political charges and the framing by the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence. Instead, that environment and the shock created a nervous crisis and psychological breakdown in me. I did not know how long I would remain imprisoned in that closed environment. In that environment, in that asylum, I had to be alongside patients suffering from severe mental disorders, and I am not a specialist, but I am interested in psychology and have read books about it, and I know that those people can be categorized as acute psychotic patients, meaning those who have no control over their behaviors. They may consider you an enemy and engage in physical conflict or may have no control over their urination or eating or the sounds they make in their sleep due to their illness. What kind of atmosphere was it? What image can you give us of that space? When you found yourself in that environment, how did it seem to you? What concerns did you have? Sanjari: Well, after all, there is no community or civility there. There is no logic other than consuming strong medications that help with sleeping and sleeping and sleeping. We know that those patients are in dangerous diseases of delusion, and imagine that you are in that space and for your political beliefs and your opposition to tyranny and dictatorship, you are forced to be imprisoned there, and imagine that you are facing a dictatorial government system whose policies have nothing to do with reality, rationality, and logic. A system that has experienced horrific political repressions, executions, tortures, rapes, political murders, and assassinations... and easily frames many of its dissidents and political opponents and has made many disappear and assassinated, and now you face the reality that this system wants to deal with you in that space and how long it intends to keep you imprisoned there. You think about these things there, and now depending on your worldview and understanding of what has happened and your understanding of the political functioning, especially in this model of dictatorship and your understanding of the history and roots of these issues and your lived experience, your reaction in that environment to what has happened can be adjusted. You have found yourself in such an unwanted situation. You have been forcibly transferred to this space with non-medical goals. What did you do? Or to put it more simply, how did you survive?